Inside the New York Yankees clubhouse with MLB.com beat writer Bryan Hoch.

Results tagged ‘ GM Meetings ’

The bags are packed and baseball is moving out of the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes, signaling the conclusion of the General Managers’ Meetings and Owners Meetings for 2013-14.

Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner, team president Randy Levine and chief operating officer Lonn Trost were on hand for meetings this morning with Commissioner Bud Selig. Yankees GM Brian Cashman was also present for the conference, and said that he is looking forward to getting back to New York.

Cashman and the Yankees met with several agents and spoke to other GMs during their time here in Orlando, but there does not appear to be an imminent deal at this time. It is still early in the winter, and the GM Meetings are typically used as an information-gathering session and a jumping-off point for talks.

“As little as I have to report right now, it’s a necessary evil to walk through this process in the front end,” Cashman said.

Asked if he had made any offers to free agents while he was here, Cashman replied: “I wouldn’t say.”

The baseball world is now free to scatter, but we’re not done with Orlando for 2013: the Winter Meetings will be held Dec. 9-12 at the Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin resort.

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Yankees GM Brian Cashman held court this afternoon here at the General Managers’ meetings in Orlando and said that he remains interested in all options to improve the club’s bullpen, including looking at closers.

Mariano Rivera obviously isn’t coming back (though it looks like we’ll see him next spring — more on that later), but Cashman indicated that the Yankees haven’t decided that David Robertson is a lock to elevate from the eighth inning to the ninth inning.

“I’m not sure if Robertson is capable yet. He’s never done that before,” Cashman said. “I think he’s earned the right to take a shot at it, and he very well may be the guy. But we’re not anointing him the guy. We’ll wait to see how our winter plays out and how Spring Training works out. Then Joe [Girardi] and Larry [Rothschild] will determine at some point at the end of Spring Training who our closer is.”

“I don’t feel like any of the passing of the torch has been done, because I don’t know what’s going to happen next year,” Robertson said. “I haven’t been told anything.”

More quick hits from today’s session at the GM Meetings:

Cashman said that he has “whispered to a club here or there when I can” since arriving in Orlando. He plans to stay at the meetings until Thursday.

A source said that the Yankees have serious interest in outfielders Shin-Soo Choo and Carlos Beltran. Cashman said that he needs to explore adding an outfielder, but that likely falls behind piecing together 400 innings for the rotation on the priority list.

“If Granderson accepted [the qualifying offer], I would’ve been excited and happy and it would have been solved,” Cashman said. “I have more pressing needs than outfield. In terms of a priority list, that’s not as big a priority as some other aspects of the club. That doesn’t mean I won’t be talking to the outfielders either.”

As far as free agent catching: “We will explore if we can improve offensively at that position and see where that’ll take us. There’s some that interest us. Most don’t.” Cashman added that he’ll “absolutely” tender a contract to Francisco Cervelli.

As Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News first reported, the Yankees will be playing split-squad games against the Marlins in Panama on March 15 and 16.

The D-backs haven’t officially requested permission to speak with Mike Harkey about their pitching coach job, but they’re expected to. Cashman said he’ll grant permission, as it’s a promotion over Harkey’s current bullpen coach job.

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Hello from the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes, the site of this year’s Major League Baseball General Managers’ meetings. Yankees GM Brian Cashman checked into the hotel late last night and didn’t have much to report, but the team will get a bit more clarity this evening, when free agents must issue a decision on any qualifying offers extended to them.

For the Yankees, that means they’ll be waiting on word from the representatives for Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson and Hiroki Kuroda. Cano won’t be accepting the one-year, $14.1 million contract, not with the certainty of much bigger dollars out there. It’d be a surprise if Granderson did, though it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility after his injury-shortened 2013 season.

The qualifying offer actually comes close to satisfying Kuroda’s needs; he has shown a preference for operating on one-year contracts, and the money is close to the $15 million he earned last season. Still, if Kuroda has decided that he wants to pitch for the Yankees again in 2014, the team would probably just slip last year’s contract across the table rather than issue him a $900,000 pay cut.

If any of the three players issued qualifying offers sign with other clubs, the Yankees would receive a compensation round pick in next year’s Draft.

The GM Meetings take place Monday and Tuesday, with the Owners’ Meetings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday. Hal Steinbrenner is expected to make the trip up from Tampa at some point late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

From a quick stroll around the hotel, you can already see meetings rooms being set up, fueled by bottomless pots of java. Cashman will spend the next two days chatting with his fellow GMs, setting the ground work for things that might pan out in the future. There are also conferences for assistant GMs, running the gamut of a variety of topics.

At night, you can see the Disney World fireworks being set off from a distance, which is kind of fun. There’s also a really nice golf course and a lazy river pool here, neither of which I plan on viewing from much closer than the window of my room. We’ll have updates for you as the week goes along.

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